Only hundreds? That sounds like a market correction rather than a crisis to me. Thousands would be cause for concern. Hundreds sounds like the shedding of dead weight. There will be plenty of work for securities firms in coming years. Especially, with the impending adoption of IFRS. Trust me, that will swell the ranks of the largest firms yet again. Accounting and law firms alike will rake in billions from that forthcoming clusterf**k. SOX 404b compliance will generate business, too. Mark my words, securities law will be a thriving practice area for years to come. The down turn is temporary... providing that more firms do not adopt fixed-fee billing arrangements. That will only mean slower job growth and fewer salary increases but not a general decline in the volume of business.

As someone who is practicing securities law in the most thriving securities market in the world right now, I can without hesitation say that there has indeed been a general decline, not only in the volume of business but in the number of deals that close. And this isn't just my firm. It's every firm in the city. My friend started at top 10 firm a month before I did (last Sept) and has only been staffed on one deal so far. Until she was staffed on this particular IPO last month she had not done ANY work. That is, she came in at 11, left at 4, went on long lunches and surfed the internet all day because there wasn't anything to do.

The markets WILL recover, but to say that they are healthy now is simply delusional. The markets are suffering, deals aren't closing and people are getting laid off. That IS the reality of corporate practice right now. Anyone interested in this field deserves to know this reality.

You're probably right... I've observed the same from my side of the business. The value of public shells is steadily dropping and has been for about six to nine months. A shell that would go for $750,00 six months ago is lucky to net a $400k return now. Furthermore, every one of my clients is in aggressive cost-cutting frenzy , especially concerning professional fees. Yet, I think this is only temporary. Since our economy lives and dies on foreign investment, I attribute this to election year jitters and a falling dollar. Hopefully, this trend will reverse in Q1 of 2009. You are very correct in your analysis that securities law and corporate law may be bad choices for recent grads. However, why should anyone pick a practice area simply based upon current employment trends that could easily change in the near term? It is a relevant disclosure item for new grads, but I believe these results are simply not indicative of future trends. If come April 1, 2009, I am proven wrong, then the beer is on me, since we'll all need something to drown our sorrows.

"Could change" isn't a lot to hang your hat on. Just letting folks out there know what is happening on the inside and that they should probably look for signs of recovering markets before gunning for a securities job, if there are other options. In most firms (mine is an exception) you can fairly easily go from one practice group to another once you are in, so maybe starting out in litigation or something else that's got business right now would be better. Then you could always move into corporate finance if that's your thing.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of moron puts all of their eggs in one basket anyway? It's sad that law school graduates need to be told such things. It's patently obvious that if there are a limited number of jobs in the field now, that another practice area might be a better choice for the short term. However, if someone really wants to practice securities law, I am sure that they will find a way to break into the profession, regardless of how the market performs. If the market doesn't rebound in six months or sixty years, there will still be work... only less of it. Besides, don't failing markets precipitate securities lawsuits? How many class action lawsuits have been brought against a companies because their stock soared?

Just out of curiosity, what kind of moron puts all of their eggs in one basket anyway? It's sad that law school graduates need to be told such things. It's patently obvious that if there are a limited number of jobs in the field now, that another practice area might be a better choice for the short term. However, if someone really wants to practice securities law, I am sure that they will find a way to break into the profession, regardless of how the market performs. If the market doesn't rebound in six months or sixty years, there will still be work... only less of it. Besides, don't failing markets precipitate securities lawsuits? How many class action lawsuits have been brought against a companies because their stock soared?

Sure, that's exactly what I am warning people about.

Regarding more securities work when the markets are bad, well, that's not necessarily true. As you know, most securities suits are on the basis of some form of fraud or misrep. Bad markets are just bad luck and not necessarily fraud by the company/BOD.

I get what you are saying. Yet, Bill Lerach made a career and a fortune nearly the size of the GDP of small nations by bringing frivolous lawsuits against companies in the early to mid-1990s. Besides the changes to discovery provisions in the mid-1990s, are there any other changes in the industry to prevent that from happening again? Lawsuits don't have to be valid to be filed.

On a different note, I wonder how much of the current "crisis" stems from the fact that nearly every major company or hedge fund hedges so much of their market risk with a derivative or anohter security, or even with a derivative of a derivative. The derivatives of derivatives are traded just like stocks or bonds. If funds, companies, and investors are so heavily diversified, when the market tanks, who are the losers? It makes sense to me that everyone loses (to a lesser degree than total loss of investment) because all players are hedged against each other. Whereas before the hedging proliferation, one segment of the market or one industry lost value, while another industry or segment won big. Now everyone loses more uniformly in down markets. Am I off base or does this make sense?

"Could change" isn't a lot to hang your hat on. Just letting folks out there know what is happening on the inside and that they should probably look for signs of recovering markets before gunning for a securities job, if there are other options. In most firms (mine is an exception) you can fairly easily go from one practice group to another once you are in, so maybe starting out in litigation or something else that's got business right now would be better. Then you could always move into corporate finance if that's your thing.

thanks for the bad advice, again. While most firms will let you switch practice groups, that does not make it a good idea, since the way you gain value to a firm is by building up expertise in a particular area.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of moron puts all of their eggs in one basket anyway? It's sad that law school graduates need to be told such things. It's patently obvious that if there are a limited number of jobs in the field now, that another practice area might be a better choice for the short term. However, if someone really wants to practice securities law, I am sure that they will find a way to break into the profession, regardless of how the market performs. If the market doesn't rebound in six months or sixty years, there will still be work... only less of it. Besides, don't failing markets precipitate securities lawsuits? How many class action lawsuits have been brought against a companies because their stock soared?

Sure, that's exactly what I am warning people about.

Regarding more securities work when the markets are bad, well, that's not necessarily true. As you know, most securities suits are on the basis of some form of fraud or misrep. Bad markets are just bad luck and not necessarily fraud by the company/BOD.

wow you are the princess of wrong. Securities fraud suits happen in bad markets because 1) you need to prove loss causation in order to win a fraud case and a plummeting stock price makes it a whole lot easier. Stock prices plummet in bad economies. 2) People often commit securities fraud because their company is struggling and they are trying to boost the stock price to buy themselves time to fix thing. Companies struggle in bad economies. It's no coincidence that Enron/Tyco/Dynegy/Worldcom all happened when the economy went south at the beginning of the decade.

"Could change" isn't a lot to hang your hat on. Just letting folks out there know what is happening on the inside and that they should probably look for signs of recovering markets before gunning for a securities job, if there are other options. In most firms (mine is an exception) you can fairly easily go from one practice group to another once you are in, so maybe starting out in litigation or something else that's got business right now would be better. Then you could always move into corporate finance if that's your thing.

thanks for the bad advice, again. While most firms will let you switch practice groups, that does not make it a good idea, since the way you gain value to a firm is by building up expertise in a particular area.

no *&^%? really? i had no idea!

anyway, last i checked job in litigation with plans to move pracitce groups was better than no job at all (because few securities positions are available).